The year that was and the the year that will be...

So happy new year friends.

Hope you had a wonderful go of it night before last and that you're looking forward to what's in store with the 363 days that remain ahead of us.

I spent some time New Years day going through my photos from 2008 trying to find some that encapsulated the year that was and the year that I hope will be.

Here's the first one...

You're looking at the wreckage of episodes 1-20.  One of the two TV series I ended up producing in 2008 was a five-days-a-week show which meant that I (we) had to produce 260 episodes.

Two hundred and sixty.

Not done yet either.  The contract will run out in May, but it feels like 2008 was the year of 260.  On top of that I had another 104 half hours to deliver on our second series.  So that's, what, three hundred and sixty four half hours of original television to be produced.

Getting the first twenty shows done was a near death experience.  It's always like that, getting started.  You're figuring everything out from scratch and it takes five times longer than you expected and half way through you start wishing you were...

 

Here

That's right.  At the beach, in the water with my babies, getting ready to catch a wave.

So here's the thing.  

You can't get there (the beach) without going through here (the editing maelstrom).  That's the way it is with show biz and that's the way it is with life.  But you mustn't think of it in terms of 'suffering' so that you can 'play'.

'Cause that way you're hating your work, counting the hours 'till you're 'free' and that's no way to live now is it?

So the thing that hit me as I was pulling the photos was this.

I love editing, and though I find the 'right in the midst of it' as tough as the next person, once I'm clear of it and the end-product is doing what I'd hoped it'd do and is building career momentum I feel almost totally good about it.  And if I allow myself a moment to be totally objective and honest I can say that I love my job, even the maelstrom-ey parts of it.

And I love the beach, and I love my babies.

So I'm happy to keep fighting my way through (and a fight it is bound to be) and while I fight I am determined to enjoy both the fight and the promise of fun in the midst of and on the other side of the fight.

Like today--I was working on our 2009-2010 budget--and though said budget is FORTY TIMES the budget we were wrestling with when we first started out, we are still having to wrestle with it.  Strange right?  'Cause we always think we're going to 'arrive' and not have to fight or wrestle or stress or persevere.

My business partner likes to remind me of a scene in the special features to 'Pirates of the Caribbean II' where the principals (Producer, Director, etc...) were pacing a rooftop on-location facing the impossible task of cutting twenty five million dollars from their budget.

Can you imagine?

One of the biggest film franchises in history and they're having the WRESTLE with the budget.

"Yeah hi.  This is Mark at the studio.  I just talked to Barry and he needs you to cut twenty five.  No.  Million.  Twenty five million.  We need the revised budget Monday."

--Click--

The struggle never goes.

So you might as well learn to love the struggle and be sure to truly relish those moments in the waves when they come 'cause you couldn't afford to take your babies to the waves if it weren't for the struggle and the struggle's not going anywhere but, luckily, neither is the ocean.

It's hard and it's lovely this thing called life.

So buck up (Todd, and all my friendly readers...) and keep at it and enjoy it 'cause this is as good as it gets.

Here's to 2009!

T